Escape from Plauen

"'Escape from Plauen' is a first-hand account of life in the German city of Plauen before Hitler's defeat, the end of Nazi Germany and through the destruction caused by the wrath of the Soviet Army. Caught between Stalin's advancing Communist Army in the East and the Allies march from the West, the women, children, and elderly of Germany had no place to hide long after the collapse of the Wehrmacht. What was there left to bomb in late 1944 and 1945 but women and children? Renate was born in the German city of Plauen before the start of the Second World War. Enduring the daily hardships of the War, Renate and her family escaped to the West from Communist East Germany in 1947. Within a week of her 1953 arrival in the United States, Renate started to work in a small shop sewing beads on moccasins. A year later she used her artistic ability to become a top designer in the Lace and Embroidery industry. Renate married in 1962, and helped her husband establish a successful Wall Street firm. After winning a writing competition in the New Yorker Staats Zeitung, a German-American weekly newspaper, friends encouraged her to spend more time writing."--Jacket.